MUMBAI, February 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Doctors at Mumbais King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital are concerned for the life of Aruna Shanbaug, a former nurse at KEM who suffered serious brain damage when she was strangled and raped in 1973, and who has been cared for by hospital staff ever since.

The Indian Supreme Court ordered an investigation into Shanbaugs condition after a journalist, who wrote a book about Shanbaug, filed a petition seeking to have hospital staff discontinue feeding her.

Journalist Pinki Virani said through her lawyer that Shanbaug had been virtually a dead person for the last 38 years, living in a persistent vegetative state and thus did not have the standard of life guaranteed by the Indian constitution.

Viranis petition asked the court to instruct the hospital staff to forthwith ensure that no food is fed to Shanbaug, according to a report in The Independent.

This vegetative existence devoid of any human dignity is not life at all and putting mashed food in her mouth only amounts to violation of human dignity, she said. The continued vegetative existence of Aruna is a violation of her right to live with dignity ... she has a right to not be in this kind of sub-human condition.

Viranis lawyer, Shubhangi Tuli, submitted that the case was not about euthanasia, which is illegal in India, but rather about the medical definition of death. She cannot move, she cannot hear. She only survives because she is being fed, the lawyer said. We are saying this is not life as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

However, Dr. Sanjay Oak, dean of KEM hospital, disputes the claim made by Virani, saying that Shanbaug is very much alive, and in his affidavit filed to the court indicated that Shanbaug is not suffering, accepts food normally, responds by facial expressions and makes sounds to express her needs.

She is on a liquid diet and loves listening to music. We have never subjected her to intravenous food or fed her via a tube. All these years, she hasnt had even one bedsore. When those looking after her do not have a problem, I dont understand why a party who has nothing to do with her needs to worry.

We have no moral right to terminate her life. I am certainly against euthanasia for Shanbaug, Dr. Oak stated, and added I call on her whenever I get time. I am there whenever she has dysentery or any other problem. She is very much alive and we have faith in the judiciary.

Alex Schadenberg of Canadas Euthanasia Prevention Coalition expressed grave concern over the Indian court being asked to rule on withdrawal of nourishment from Shanbaug  who is not a family member or a friend from years before.

What is significant is that Shanbaug is not dying, said Schadenberg. She is a human person who is in an incredibly vulnerable condition. She is not requiring medical treatment, but rather she continues to live as long as she is fed.

Ms Virani has stated that the court needs to consider the medical definition of death, Schadenberg observed. If people with cognitive conditions are labeled as dead, then the meaning of life will be altered to a man-made definition. Who else will be defined as already dead?

The anti-euthanasia activist pointed out that providing food and water to a person with cognitive disabilities is normal care. It is not excessive, extraordinary, or burdensome and it is able to be done by anyone.

Schadenberg warned that if society decides that killing people by dehydration, which should be called euthanasia by dehydration, is acceptable, then society will have agreed that the most vulnerable in our society have lost their right to protection and may be killed by others.

Thank you for bringing this story to our attention. This part really stood out to me:

She is on a liquid diet and loves listening to music. We have never subjected her to intravenous food or fed her via a tube. All these years, she hasnt had even one bedsore. When those looking after her do not have a problem, I dont understand why a party who has nothing to do with her needs to worry.

It was a relatively calm day in my hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I and two other nurses were trying to have a conversation amid the customary sounds of ventilators and heart monitors. I was in mid-sentence when the shrill ring of the red emergency phone halted everything. "Come fast," the voice said urgently, "We need a neonatal nurse here STAT!" (that's immediately). Fear gripped my heart as I ran into the delivery room, but instantly I knew the situation was critical, and I was now prepared for what I was about to experience. "What's happened here?" I asked. "It's an oops abortion, and now it's your problem!" responded one of the nurses. For us, an 'oops abortion' meant that the fetus had survived the abortion procedure.

A pediatrician had also been called to the scene. He ran by me with the fetus, (now called a baby), in his hand and yelled in my direction. I followed him into the resuscitation room adjoining the delivery room.

I looked into the bed of the warmer as I grabbed equipment. There lay a baby boy...... a very, very tiny baby boy. The doctor and I immediately made an attempt at intubation, that is, inserting a tube down the windpipe from the mouth or nose of the infant to the tip of the lungs to try to ventilate, expand and get oxygen into them. The doctor's efforts at intubation failed. All it did was further traumatize the baby. I glanced at the doctor and hesitantly asked, "Will you attempt intubation again?'

"It would be inhumane to attempt to intubate this poor little thing again. This infant will never survive." "Well", I said, "it is my job to ask." The doctor softened, "I'm sorry, Sharon, I'm just angry. The mother doesn't want the inconvenience of a baby, so she comes to the hospital so she can pay somebody to get rid of it -- all neat and tidy. Then the whole thing gets messed up when the little one has the audacity to survive."

"And then everybody takes it seriously, and they call the pediatrician, and I'm supposed to fix it, or get rid of it." With anger in his voice, he went on, "Some lawyers will fight for the right for the mother to do whatever she wants to with her body, but watch out for what they do when abortions aren't so neat and tidy!!! A failed homicide -- oops! Then all of a sudden everybody cares, and it's turned from a 'right' into a 'liability' that someone is blamed for!"

We looked at our pathetic little patient. He was lying in the fetal position in the wrong environment, trying to get air into underdeveloped lungs that could not do the job.

In a calmed voice, the doctor said, "Okay, Nurse, I'm going back to my office. Keep him comfortable and let me know when it's over. I'm sorry about this. Call me if you need me. I know this is a hard one. If it helps, please know it is tough for me too."

I watched the doctor retreat and then glanced back at the infant before me. He was gasping for air. 'Lord, help!', I prayed. Almost instinctively, I measured the baby's vital signs. His temperature was dangerously low. I pushed the warmer settings as high as they would go. His heart rate was about 180 - 200 beats per minute. I could count the beats by watching his little chest pulsate.

I settled down a bit and began to focus on this tiny little person. He had no name, so I gave him one. Suddenly, I found myself speaking to the baby. "Tiny Tim, who are you? I'm sorry you weren't wanted. It's not your fault."

I placed my little finger in his hand, and he grasped it. As I watched him closely, I marveled that all the minute parts of a beautiful baby were present and functioning in spite of this onslaught. I touched his toes and discovered that this premature baby was ticklish! He had a long torso and long legs, and I wondered if he would have become a basketball player. Perhaps he would have been a teacher or maybe a doctor.

Emotions swept over me as I thought of my friends who had been waiting and praying for years for a baby to adopt. I spoke aloud again to this miniature baby. "They would have given you a loving and happy home. Why would people destroy you before ever considering adoption? Ignorance isn't bliss, is it, Tiny Tim?"

So little Tim put his thumb into his mouth and sucked. I hoped that gave him comfort. I said, "I'm sorry, Tim. There are people who would risk their lives for a whale or an owl, but they wouldn't even blink an eye about what is happening to you." Tiny Tim gasped, and his little chest heaved as if a truck were sitting on it. With my stethoscope, I listened to his tiny, pounding heart. It seemed easier to focus on his physiology rather than on this tiny baby's humanity.

And then he wet...and my mind took off again. Here was Tiny Tim with a whole set of kidneys, a bladder and connecting tubes that functioned with a very complex system of chemistry. His plumbing was all working! I turned the overhead light up and little Tim turned away from it. In spite of eyelids that were still fused together, he wanted to protect his precious little eyes. I thought about them. They would never see a sunset, a mother's smile or the wagging tail of a dog.

I took his temperature again. It was dropping. He was gasping for air and continued to fight for life. I stroked him gently and began to sing to him.

Another nurse walked in. "How's the mother?" I asked. "Oh she's fine. She's back in her room resting." The family said they don't want to see or hear about anything. They said, "Just take care of it." The nurse retreated with one last glance at the tiny patient. "For such a little person, he sure is putting up a big fight," she said.

So there I was with this tiny, tiny preemie who had survived an abortion. The doctor had left. The family had said, 'Just take care of it'. Sharon had found the toes ticklish, and she watched him suck his thumb. She had turned the heat lights up, and he had turned his head away from the bright light to protect his eyes. And now he was wetting...his plumbing worked too.

I looked at Tiny Tim and wondered if he knew that what he was fighting for so hard was life -- and I knew he was losing his fight. He was dying...and his family was not even interested. Their words tormented me, "Just take care of it!" No muss, no fuss.

Then Tiny Tim moved and caught hold of my little finger. I let him hang on. I did not want him to die without being touched and cared for. As I saw him struggle to breathe, I said, "It's okay, Tim. You can let go.........You can go back to God." His gasping started to slow down, but he still clung to my finger. I stroked him ever so slowly and watched him take his last breath.

A few years later, the same Sharon Dunsmore became the manager of a psychiatric unit. One day, Kathy, a young, severely depressed woman, came to see Sharon following an unsuccessful suicide attempt. As Sharon interviewed her and heard her story, she told of an abortion she had received three years before and was having recurring nightmares. A baby was crying for help and kept calling her name. In her dreams, Kathy kept searching for the baby, but could never find him or her. She did not even know the sex of her baby.

As Kathy gave the name of the hospital and the names of the doctor, a disturbing realization dawned on Sharon -- Kathy was Tiny Tim's mother. But because of hospital regulations Sharon could not tell Kathy what she knew.

But time passed. Sharon was no longer a nurse or a therapist. Kathy was no longer a psychiatric patient. They ran into each other at a restaurant, where Sharon gently unfolded the story that had been hidden for so long. Tears flowed as she gave Kathy the gift of answers. Her baby had been touched and loved by a mother. He had been given a name. He didn't die alone. He was sent back to a loving God.

They held each other and wept. Sharon looked into Kathy's eyes and saw new strength and calm. There were scars, but she was beginning to heal. The nightmares were being put to rest.

Sharon still lives with the haunting impact of this experience. A CHOICE that was intended to be 'no big deal', turned out to be a very big deal for everyone.

I was brought to tears by this story. In all my travels and experience in the Army, I have never witnessed anything like what Sharon Dunsmore did. I have seen people killed, I have seen the effects of war, and I have helped kill other human beings. It amazes me what human beings will do to each other. Still, in everything I have seen, I wonder how people can call 'Tiny Tim' just a piece of tissue, just a choice. We as a nation will answer for the infanticide that we practice. We as Christians will answer for what we have or have not done to stop this holocaust.

In Nazi Germany in the 1930's and 1940's the Christian Churches were well aware of what the Nazi's were doing to the Jews and other undesirables. In most cases the church chose to do nothing, reasoning, that they should let the state take care of earthly matters, while the church worried about saving the soul. The price for inaction, the destruction of Germany. Do not sit idly by while this country mortgages her soul through infanticide.

'Just take care of it.' How convenient to rationalize life by calling the baby 'it.' If you choose abortion, you choose stories like this! Unfortunately, we pay for our choices in life, Kathy paid a terrible price, as did Tiny Tim. But so did Sharon, the doctors, nurses and family involved. However, it is more than that, this nation is paying a price for treating our most helpless citizens as tissue. God says He knew us before we were born. He also says a man and a nation will reap what it sows.

Rodger Winn, an Oregon citizen, wrote an article promoting the extension of assisted suicide laws to people with Alzheimer's that he titled: A matter of choice

Winn is proposing that the answer to people with Alzheimer's is to give them a lethal dose.

Since when is it a matter of choice for people who cannot ask for assisted suicide, and what happens when the person is unable to "self-administer" the lethal dose themselves. Well, self-administer is really a misnomer in Oregon because it has been defined as "to ingest" and because there is no witness required at the time of death. To ingest could mean that you swallow or that it is absorbed throught your IV.

I wonder if Winn would say that there is no fear of a slippery slope in Oregon?

ROME February 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)  A prominent American professor of Catholic medical ethics has said that in brain death criteria there is no moral certitude that a patient is really dead, a condition laid out by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI as necessary for removing organs.

The available evidence, he said, raises a reasonable doubt that excludes moral certitude that ventilator-sustained brain dead bodies are corpses.

Professor E. Christian Brugger, a Senior Fellow of Ethics at the Culture of Life Foundation gave this judgment in a question and answer article published today by the Rome-based news agency Zenit.

Brugger quoted Pope John Paul II, who told a congress on organ transplants that death is a single event consisting in the total disintegration of that unity and integrated whole that is the personal self.

Although we cannot identify the event directly, we can identify biological signs consequent upon the loss of that unity, said Brugger. But according to many experts, those biological signs are not present in brain death cases.

In his address to the 2000 organ transplant conference, Pope John Paul II had said that when rigorously applied brain death criteria does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology but that this judgment must reach moral certainty.

Brugger suggests, however, that this statement does not properly speaking qualify as an authoritative statement of the magisterium, since the Churchs authority extends to matters of faith and morals. The validity of brain death, however, is based upon a scientific premise that such and such empirical indicators correspond to an absence of human life.

This is a technical matter bearing on the adequacy of those indicators for accurately signifying that death has occurred, he pointed out.

Brugger references the research of D. Alan Shewmon, which, he says, demonstrates conclusively that the bodies of some who are rightly diagnosed as suffering whole brain death express integrative bodily unity to a fairly high degree.

All of this, says Brugger, would seem to indicate that brain death fails to meet Pope John Pauls definition of death as the total disintegration of that unity and integrated whole that is the personal self.

The controversy over organ transplants stems from the widespread application of various brain death criteria, as well as so-called non-heart beating death criteria to determine whether organs can be removed from a patient on life support. Physicians, eager to obtain organs, are routinely removing organs from patients whose vital signs are still strong, while family members frequently report being placed under heavy pressure to consent to organ harvesting.

This problem, however, has yet to be thoroughly addressed by the various relevant Vatican offices, with a strong trend among officials in favor of brain death criteria.

In November 2009, Pope Benedict XVI gave an address to a prestigious international conference on organ transplants in which he warned that the principle of moral certainty in determining death must be the highest priority of doctors. In its roster of speakers, that conference, partially sponsored by the Vaticans own Pontifical Academy for Life, did not address the moral issue that is at the heart of the controversy over organ transplants.

The pope said, however, that donation of organs can only be licit if it does not create a serious danger to the health of the donor.

There must not be the slightest suspicion of arbitrariness. Where certainty cannot be achieved, the principle of precaution must prevail, he warned. Benedict added, Informed consent is the precondition of freedom, so that the transplant has the characteristic of a gift and cannot be interpreted as an act of coercion or exploitation.

Despite the uniformly positive approach of conference attendees towards brain death criteria, the popes statement was taken by many as a ringing warning.

The following February, at a separate conference on brain death, an international gathering of medical, neurological and philosophical experts roundly condemned the criteria, saying that they result in the deaths of patients by premature removal of organs.

25
posted on 02/06/2011 2:14:33 PM PST
by wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)

NEW JERSEY  February 1, 2011 A Planned Parenthood manager in New Jersey coaches a man and a woman posing as sex traffickers how to to secure secret abortions, STD testing, and contraception for their female underage sex slaves, and make their whole operation look as legit as possible in an undercover video released this morning.

Clinic manager Amy Woodruff, LPN, of Planned Parenthood Central New Jerseys Perth Amboy center, warns the pimp and his prostitute to have their trafficked underage girls lie about their age to avoid mandatory reporting laws, promising, even if they lie, just say, Oh he's the same age as me, 15, it's just that mainly 14 and under we have to, doesn't matter if their partner's the same age, younger, whatever, 14 and under we have to report. She says, For the most part, we want as little information as possible.

Woodruff also recommends how the pimp can get his prostitutes cheaper contraception by claiming they are students: If they're minors, put down that they're students. Yeah, just kind of play along that theyre students--we want to make it look as legit as possible.

If one of the young trafficked girls needs an abortion, Woodruff refers the pimp and prostitute to the Metropolitan Medical Association, where their protocols arent as strict as ours and they dont get audited the same way that we do. The prostitute in the video asks how long after the abortion until the girls can have sex again, and when Woodruff says minimum of 2 weeks, she asks what sex acts the girls could still do to make money. Woodruff advises, Waist up, or just be that extra action walking by to advertise sex to potential clients.

Sex trafficking is punishable under federal law and carries a potential life sentence. The new video is released by Live Action, a pro-life new media organization led by 22-year-old Lila Rose. The video airs just days after Planned Parenthoods leadership suspected the sting operation and sought an FBI probe of Live Action in order to deter the release of the exposé. Live Action is sending full footage to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, NJ Attorney General Paula Dow, officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and other law enforcement officials, requesting federal and state investigations into Planned Parenthoods sexual abuse and sex trafficking cover up.

The past couple weeks have been difficult for supporters of legal abortion. Unplanned, a book by Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director, has quickly become a bestseller. Last week, Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder for using scissors to kill babies delivered alive in his abortion mill. His clinic was described by regulators as a filthy, foul-smelling house of horrors. Last Mondays March for Life in Washington, D.C., attracted a large and enthusiastic crowd. And yesterday, Live Action Films released that undercover video which shows a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Jersey willing to assist a pimp whose prostitutes are minors  in some cases as young as 14.

Planned Parenthood has always enjoyed a positive reputation among the general public. For a long time, it seemed as if pro-life activists were the only ones who were aware that Planned Parenthood is the nations largest abortion provider. Furthermore, previous efforts to sway public opinion against Planned Parenthood met with only mixed success. Life Dynamics of Denton, Texas, did record a series of phone calls which showed that many Planned Parenthood clinics were willing to ignore parental-involvement laws. However, nothing has had the impact of the undercover videos shot by Lila Rose of Live Action Films.

These films have quickly gone viral on the Internet. They have shown a Planned Parenthood clinic worker willing to accept a donation specifically earmarked to abort a black baby, a Planned Parenthood willing to violate parental-involvement laws, and a Planned Parenthood unwilling to report statutory rape when an underage girl admits to engaging in sexual activity with a man in his 30s. Now, these episodes of misconduct are all both damaging and instructive. However, in some cases they can be viewed as either lapses in judgment (albeit very serious ones) or (very) misguided attempts to assist minors facing difficult situations.

This weeks Live Action video is easily their most powerful. In this video, a Planned Parenthood office manager literally spends about ten minutes finding ways to aid and assist a pimp who clearly admits that his employees include underage girls. A simple phone call to the police might have succeeded in shutting down this whole prostitution ring. However, instead the office manager cheerfully provides the pimp with information about abortion services, contraception, and medical exams. Even more disturbing, when asked about underage girls, the clinic manager gives him information about another abortion clinic whose protocols are not as strict as ours. She warns about and callously insults a Planned Parenthood nurse who has an interest in following the rules. The clinic manager admits that she is cool with the pimp and offers to rearrange her schedule to help streamline the process.

Obviously, there are many implications from this video. One hopes that New Jersey (and other states) will improve their regulation of Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics, and that this will give some momentum to congressional efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. However, what is most striking is the calm and nonchalant way the clinic director behaves toward someone purportedly running an underage prostitution ring. Unlike some other Planned Parenthood employees captured in previous videos, she never once expresses the slightest bit of skepticism or concern. The presence of legal abortion has always facilitated a promiscuous culture. However, allowing people to see the lengths that Planned Parenthood will go to defend and actually encourage illegal and perverted sexual activities might be the most valuable contribution of this undercover video.

- Michael New is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama and a fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J.

February 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)  Following the release of two undercover videos this week showing Planned Parenthoods in New Jersey and Virginia aiding sex traffickers of underage women, the pro-life group Live Action today released footage from three more Virginia Planned Parenthood facilities.

The videos appear to show staff willing to aid and abet the sexual trafficking and exploitation of minors and young women.

The footage shows a man who identifies himself as a pimp working with underage girls. He seeks assistance for getting abortions, STD testing and birth control for girls he manages as sex workers, who are from out of the country and as young as 14 to 15 years old.

At one Planned Parenthood in Roanoke, Virginia, the pimp was told that obtaining birth control and STD testing for underage prostitutes would be no problem.

From the age of 12 up, for birth control, you can just come in and do that. You dont have to have a parent, OK? the staffer told the undercover investigator.

In reference to STD testing, the staffer went on to say: And the thing is, see this is the thing a lot of people dont know that ... Right, through the Health Department. And so, theyll uh, theyll track it. And theyre discreet. Theyre confidential. They, you know, dont tell people whats going on, because  frankly  its nobodys business.

At a facility in Falls Church, the investigator was told that abortions for underage girls from other countries only require a photo ID.

We dont necessarily look at the legal status, like I said, a staffer said. Abortion appointments do require photo ID. Its nothing as far as records. Its just photo ID thats ever going to be required.

The same pattern emerged in Charlottesville, where a staffer emphasized that birth control and testing for STDs and pregnancy would be provided for underage girls with no questions asked.

Anybody here can help you, said the staffer. Everything here is confidential. We cant give any information out.

The only acceptable response to encountering a self-identified sex-trafficker of underage girls is zero tolerance, said Live Action President Lila Rose today. The only professional response is to immediately call law enforcement to the scene and push for an arrest.

Our investigation  and their response  continues to show that an institutional crisis has engulfed the highest levels of Planned Parenthood. If youre a sex-trafficker of minors or young women, you have a partner in Planned Parenthood. But if you are a minor or a young woman, you are not safe at Planned Parenthood clinics.

Planned Parenthood has defended itself, saying that staff members reported the visits to the proper authorities after Live Actions investigators left. In reference to the video released Thursday, from the clinic in Richmond, Virginia, Planned Parenthood said: In this mornings publicized tape, the Planned Parenthood staff member reacted professionally to a highly unusual person posing as a patient. After the encounter, the staff member immediately notified her supervisor, who subsequently notified members of Planned Parenthoods national security team, who are working with the FBI, which is investigating these visits.

In the videos released today, one of the staffers in Falls Church does point out to the pimp at one point in the conversation that for young girls, theres laws that some things have to be reported.

In January, about a week before the first video was released, Planned Parenthood had told the Associated Press that it had learned of several encounters at their clinics with illegal sex traffickers within a week. The abortion group said that after reporting the incidents to the FBI, they came to suspect that the visitors were investigators with Live Action, which has launched sting operations against the organization in the past.

So far one Planned Parenthood employee, a manager for the clinic in New Jersey, has been fired for her handling of the alleged sex trafficking ring. A video released Tuesday showed the clinic manager giving the pimp advice on how to make his exploitation of girls look as legit as possible. The state attorney general has also launched an investigation into the managers actions.

Yesterday, two U.S. congressmen, Rep. Mike Pence and Rep. Sean Duffy, called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood based upon the information uncovered in Live Actions videos.

Every American should be shocked that an employee of the largest recipient of federal funds under Title X has been recorded aiding and abetting underage sex trafficking, said Pence.

The time to deny any and all funding to Planned Parenthood is now.

Today, we are sending Attorney General Cuccinelli and Virginia law enforcement officials new, disturbing footage from three Virginia clinics, said Lila Rose. The evidence continues to mount, and shows a clear pattern where Planned Parenthood is willing aid and abet the sex-trafficking industry. These are abhorrent practices and it is time Planned Parenthood be held accountable.

...Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, "We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world." Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom.

~snip~

Somehow America has bred a kindliness into our people unmatched anywhere, as has been pointed out in that best-selling record by a Canadian journalist. We are not a sick society. A sick society could not produce the men that set foot on the moon, or who are now circling the earth above us in the Skylab. A sick society bereft of morality and courage did not produce the men who went through those years of torture and captivity in Vietnam. Where did we find such men? They are typical of this land as the Founding Fathers were typical. We found them in our streets, in the offices, the shops and the working places of our country and on the farms.

We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, "The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind."

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth. -- January 25, 1974

27
posted on 02/06/2011 2:51:55 PM PST
by wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps -- millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe de Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life...and left the vivid air signed with your honor ."

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

31
posted on 02/06/2011 3:10:26 PM PST
by wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)

Planned Parenthood wrote the FBI a letter a week after our investigation, only after they realized that Live Action had conducted the sting.They say this themselves. As much as they may pretend, Planned Parenthood was not attempting to help send human traffickers to jail; they were attempting to pre-empt the release of Live Actions footage.

If Planned Parenthood really cared about reporting potential sex traffickers to authorities, they would have called police while the pimp was in the clinic, or immediately after. Not wasting a minute. Planned Parenthood, where are the reports from the now SIX clinics weve released, that you immediately called the police?

Why did all your staffers, instead of refusing service or gathering information from the pimp about his sex ring to inform authorities, GIVE the pimp information about how to access the Planned Parenthood system for secret services?

Deception 5) Live Action Videos Are All Doctored and a Hoax

We have heard this tired claim from Planned Parenthood every time we release a video. Yet every time weve released a video, we post the full, unedited footage online for all to see, and send the full, unedited footage to state and federal authorities. Planned Parenthood cant argue with the full footage.

See Vice-President Stuart Schear on camera claiming our tapes are doctored, then admitting he hasnt even seen them.

Planned Parenthood, if you really think our videos are fake, doctored and a hoax, why did you yesterday claim that you will be retraining your entire staff of 11,000?

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - New undercover audio released today by Live Action reveals a Washington, D.C. Planned Parenthood facility willing to aid and abet a self-identified sex trafficker exploiting underage girls, including girls imported from other countries. This facility is the seventh implicated in a series of releases by the pro-life media organization in the last two weeks.

The new audio features a woman posing as a prostitute as well as a manager of young girls for sex work meeting with a staffer at Planned Parenthoods Egypt Center on Minnesota Avenue, NE. The staffer counsels the sex trafficker on how to get the girls tested for STDs, the best way for them to get an abortion, and how to work the system if they dont have health insurance.

The pattern in DC, just miles from Capitol Hill and the White House, is clear: presented with information that underage girls are being exploited for commercial sex, Planned Parenthoods again shows its willingness to aid and abet sex traffickers, said Lila Rose, president of Live Action. An institutional crisis has consumed Planned Parenthood at the highest levels. The reason their story has changed five times in reaction to our investigation is because they know theyre guilty.

Sex trafficking in the U.S. has increased dramatically in recent years, and the pattern revealed by our investigation shows sex traffickers have no better friend than Planned Parenthood, she continued. Untold damage has already been done to countless girls and young women, whose safety and health are clearly at risk because organizations like Planned Parenthood provide confidentiality and safe haven for sex traffickers.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has claimed that the videos are doctored, though Live Action has released its full footage on each facility.

Stuart Schear, vice president for communications with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, reiterated this claim following Tuesdays release of footage on a New York facility. Yet Schear admitted to a member of the production team for Fox News OReilly Factor that he hadnt actually seen the tape.

This week the abortion giant announced that they will be retraining employees to ensure reporting of abuse.

Lila Rose questioned the motivations for this retraining in an op-ed yesterday, in which she sought to debunk six deceptions used by Planned Parenthood in response to the latest series of stings. Rose points out that the organization also called for re-training after a December 2008 video showed a Planned Parenthood worker willing to cover up sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl. Clearly, that re-training (whatever it was) didnt last very long, she notes.

How exactly will Planned Parenthood be training its staff? she asks further. Will the training be a special seminar on how to recognize Live Action cameras?

Live Action has previously released more than a dozen hidden camera videos from ten states, revealing a pattern of illegal Planned Parenthood activities including cover-up of sexual abuse of minors, the skirting of parental consent laws, citing unscientific and fabricated medical information to manipulate women to have abortions, and Planned Parenthoods willingness to accept donations earmarked to abort African-American babies.

A transcript of the audio from Washington, D.C. is available here.____________________________________________________

How many of us let headlines create lines in our foreheads? With TV and internet reports around the clock, it's easy to become manic-depressive news junkiesand that's why I'm often called to be a contrarian. Are you feeling good about "revolution" in Egypt? See "Leadership in a vacuum" in this issue. Are you feeling bad about domestic trends? Read on for good news concerning young Christians and pro-lifers.

First, let's take on pundits and pollsters who purportedly provide answers to the age-old question, What's the matter with kids today? You've probably heard a typical moan: They're leaving the church, so gotta become relevant, gotta take up liberal positionsor else the kids are gone. You may even have seen shows answering YES to the question of "Are Young Evangelicals Skewing More Liberal?" (ABC) and "Are Young Evangelicals Leaning Left?" (PBS).

Hmm. Baylor University researchers Byron Johnson and Buster Smith, after crunching polling data about evangelical political identifications and attitudes, have concluded that (1) younger evangelicals hold views similar to older evangelicals on most issues, and (2) young evangelicals remain significantly more conservative than non-evangelicals on those issues.

Johnson and Smith found that age, among non- evangelicals, is an important predictor of political stance: 50 percent of the young are liberal but only 33 percent of those older. Among evangelicals, though, 70 percent of the young are conservative, 74 percent of the older: No big deal. Maybe non-evangelicals have to learn from hard experience that liberalism doesn't work, and evangelicals know that from the Bible. (Only about one of 10 evangelicals, young or old, calls himself "liberal.")

The conservatism of young evangelicals is apparent issue by issue. Some 72 percent say the use of marijuana is always or almost always wrong, compared to 73 percent of older evangelicals. You may have heard that young evangelicals accept homosexual marriage, but the survey says otherwise: The old (83 percent) oppose it, but the young (85 percent) oppose it even more. Only on issues like "global warming" is there a young/old divide among evangelicals, with the young much more concerned.

And here's the particularly good news: Younger evangelicals are more pro-life than older ones. To take the hardest case, 61 percent of the younger say abortion is wrong even if pregnancy is the result of rape, compared to 50 percent of their elders. Only one in 10 evangelicals, whether young or old, says abortion is right if a family can't afford another child.

Despite Washington temperatures in the 20s on Jan. 24, tens of thousands of younger evangelicals put their legs where their hearts are by joining the annual March for Life. Even the usually snarky Washington Post admitted that "more young people appeared to be participating than in previous years." A decade ago many pro-life leaders worried about the graying of the movement: Those concerns are now gone.

On Feb. 1, 22-year-old Lila Rose threw Planned Parenthood into a tizzy by showing with an undercover video how a New Jersey branch of America's largest abortion provider was happy to help a supposed pimp grow his sex-trafficking business with 14- and 15-year-old victims. Take a look at her sensational work on YouTube.

The abortion lobby, of course, is fighting back with attempts to discredit Rose and pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. Attacks on crisis pregnancy centers by abortion's media allies are nothing new: My wife and I confronted one in Austin 25 years ago, and we've seen the same smear attempts every five years or so elsewhere. We played Austin American-Statesman editors a tape that showed how their hatchet-woman twisted quotations and facts, but most reporters aren't so sloppy.

So we need to keep fighting. Happily, a judge late last month declared the Baltimore City Council's attempt at harassing crisis pregnancy centers (CPC) there to be a violation of freedom of speech. That decision may give pause to the Washington state legislature and the New York City Council, both considering anti-CPC bills. A Bronx Rally to Save the Life Centers on Feb. 7 drew pastors and other Christians, including leaders from predominantly black churches angry that abortionists kill most African-American babies.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." That's the concluding line of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Christians always beat against the currentbut some worried two years ago that we might be swamped. No way. Thanks be to God.

36
posted on 02/13/2011 10:41:44 AM PST
by wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)

Complete title: We Are Living in the Midst of the Greatest Human Genocide in the History of Humanity, Rep. Franks Says of Legalized Abortion

Rep. Trent Franks (R-N.M) said at a pressconference on Feb. 10 to push for ending thefederal funding of Planned Parenthood thatthe United States is 'awash in the blood' ofthe some 50 million unborn children whohave been aborted since the procedure wasmade legal in 1973. (CNSNews.com/PennyStarr)

(CNSNews.com) Rep. Trent Franks (R-N.M.) said on Thursday that because modern technology can reveal fetal development in the womb, Americans are starting to wake up and realize the reality that abortion ends a human life.

And I am convinced more than ever that were asking that real question, Does abortion really kill a baby? Franks said at a press conference on Capitol Hill to discuss the latest efforts by Republicans in the House to introduce legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers that receive taxpayer dollars through Title X Family Planning provisions.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, if abortion really does kill a baby, then in this, the seat of freedom, we are living in the midst of the greatest human genocide in the history of humanity, Franks said.

Franks said there are three other realities of abortion that include consequences for the unborn child, the mother and society as a whole.

No. 1, a nameless little baby dies a lonely, tragic death, Franks said. No. 2, a mother is never the same, no matter what anybody tells you; and No. 3 all the gifts that that little baby might have brought to this human family are lost forever.

Franks said he believes Americans understand that all of Gods children have that divine image stamped on their souls and then he quoted Thomas Jefferson.

It was Thomas Jefferson [who] said that the care and protection of human life, and not its destruction, is the only object of good government, Franks said.

Franks was one of more than a dozen House members who joined members of the House Pro-life Womens Caucus and pro-life advocacy groups, all of which called for legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.

The campaign has taken on new steam in light of recent undercover videos produced by the pro-life youth advocacy group Live Action that show Planned Parenthood staff at abortion clinics in numerous states telling actors who claimed to be sex traffickers seeking abortion for their underage female workers that they would not ask questions about the girls or the pimp who was with them.

Franks said the videos and revelations at the press conference about other alleged crimes documented in past videos by Live Action, including Planned Parenthood staff not reporting sexual abuse of underage girls, incredibly enlightening.

But the bottom line here is this is an organization thats been the principal force behind the killing of nearly 50 million little Americans, Franks said.

When asked by CNSNews.com how Congress could defund Planned Parenthood with a pro-abortion president like Barack Obama in the White House, Franks said the Constitution requires that all federal funding begin in the House.

I hope the people on the relevant committees, appropriations committees, have the courage to do whats right in that regard because a government is what it spends, and we are spending money killing our own children, and a country that is awash in the blood of its children cant survive in the kind of republic that we have, Franks said.

37
posted on 02/13/2011 10:47:04 AM PST
by wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)

BISMARCK, North Dakota, February 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A strong majority of lawmakers in the North Dakota House of Representatives on Friday afternoon passed a law that would make it illegal to murder any human being from the moment of their conception.

The Defense of Human Life Act, HB 1450, recognizes every human being at any stage of development as a person under state law with a right to protection.

The overwhelming community and legislative support for HB 1450 proves that North Dakota could be the first state to recognize the value and dignity of every living human being, stated Representative Dan Ruby. The Defense of Human Life Act is just common sense. Of course every human being is a person, and every innocent person should receive legal protection. I am motivated to see women and children protected by HB 1450, and I look forward to its passage in the Senate in the near future.

While the bill prohibits chemical abortifiacients such as RU-486, it does not apply to emergency contraception, or other contraception administered before a clinically diagnosable pregnancy. The bill also exempts legitimate medical procedures that may lead to the death of children in the womb when a womans life is in danger. The bill also exempts pregnant women seeking abortions from criminal prosecution.

The bill, supported by ND Right to Life, ND Life League, ND Family Alliance, ND CWFA, and the ND Catholic Conference, passed 68-25 in Fridays vote.

Daniel Woodard, a legal consultant for North Dakota Right to Life and the North Dakota Life League, told LifeSiteNews.com that the bill would put the one remaining abortion clinic in the state out of business. This bill should shut down that clinic, said Woodard.

While the bill also bans the killing of frozen embryos produced by in-vitro fertilization, Woodard said, it would leave the implementation of new regulations to the medical community. In North Dakota, the legislature has confidence in its medical professional groups to regulate itself, he said.

While pro-lifers are optimistic about the bills survival in the Senate, Woodard said that supporters would be taking no chances and continue to lobby for its passage. A vote in the Senate is expected around March 10.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple has not stated whether or not he plans to sign the bill.

38
posted on 02/13/2011 10:52:13 AM PST
by wagglebee
("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)

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